How to Get Azure Multi-factor Authentication

Azure Multi-Factor Authenticationrefers to a Characteristic of an authentication system or an authenticator that requires more than one authentication factors for successful authentication. Multi-factor authentication can be performed using a single authentication that provides more than one factor or by a combination of authenticators that provide different factors.

What is Azure Multi-Factor Authentication?

Having two different factors isn’t multi-factor authentication, that’s just having two different instances of the same factor. You need different factors and the more factors that are used the stronger the implementation is considered to be.

A debit card is the perfect example of multi factor authentication.

Something you have – Card itself

Something you know – Pin Code

One factor alone isn’t enough to complete the transaction, so you are using the two different factors to prove that you are the owner of the bank account. That model has been built into the IT industry with organizations issuing multi-factor credentials to the users. Which could something static like software certificates that used in the combination of static password or something more dynamic like hardware token that generates the one-time password that changes every 30 seconds.

RSA Secure ID is a well-known example, the user enters the passcode from the device into the browser and the passcode is validated on the server in order to verify they are in the possession of the token. Similarly, the new Microsoft authenticator App can perform the same function by providing the passcode to the user’s mobile device which is a part of the Azure MFA suite of tools.